On to the next one…

I woke up this morning with yet ANOTHER migraine. I know the recent spate has been down to me holding onto stress but I just can’t seem to shake it…

In less than 24 hours I have received another email telling me I’ve been unsuccessful from my latest audition. And, yes, I know that the pessimistic feelings that come from rejection will fade. However, I inevitably started to doubt myself, again.

I contemplated throwing in the towel, giving up on it altogether! Sod my acting career. Why not give up my dreams? They’re never going to come true anyway…

I had recently been speaking to my life coach, the fabulous Holly Matthews, about life, funnily enough.. and she’d suggested joining some local networking groups. I’d always found the larger groups to be too noisy. Too much going on. So I found the MIB groups for Leeds and Bradford and joined those.

The first post I came across was about it being National Careers Week and they had asked ‘What did you want to be when you were younger? What do you do now?’

This prompted me to reflect on why I do what I do, why I’m pursuing acting and how it has always been the thing I go back to when I don’t know where I’m going.

So, yes, these rejections are two of many. And I know I’ll have many more to come. That’s the way this business works. But I know I’m destined for great things, so as much as this sucks and honestly hurts sometimes, it’s fine. I pick myself up, dust myself off and move on to the next one.

I have come to realise that my mood and mindset change dramatically from time to time and I slip into these awful depressive states. The migraines that last for days, constant pain, the lack of motivation, the fear of impending doom!

I have weeks where everything is amazing, beyond amazing. I’m on top of everything, getting work complete. The house is even clean and tidy. I could take on the world and win!

Then suddenly I hit a wall. No matter how much sleep I get I’m still shattered, I wake more exhausted than when I went to bed! It’s frustrating and debilitating. I feel like a fraud. I’m usually an optimistic, productive person, full of life and looking forward to the next exciting thing to present itself…

I don’t know precisely why this happens, I don’t know the cause and it doesn’t seem to make a difference what has been going on directly before it happens.

I exercise regularly, I eat fairly healthy, I drink plenty of water. I already do all of the things that would be advised by a medical professional. And I carry on with these things when I feel like shit because I know that if I didn’t I would feel a million times worse, even though it feels like self care doesn’t even help one iota when I am in this ‘fog’.

A lot of this is difficult to explain, especially when I’m starting to come out of it, I wish I could explain it whilst I’m in the thick of it, but I can barely function, so it’s not really an option. Once I start to feel better, the days when I felt bad become hazy, almost like I was drunk. I can barely remember conversations I’ve had. It’s disconcerting. But it’s a thing I deal with on a regular basis.

Now my head is clearing and I am starting to head back into the unstoppable me it’s hard to believe I can ever feel so down and drained. And yet when I was in the lowest pit I feel like I’ll never get back here… but I do, and I think I cling to that when I’m down, otherwise it would be really easy to just completely give up.